Dungeon Siege III doesn’t live up to its promise (review)

Over the this console generation, old-school dungeon-crawlers have become something of a rarity. While PC gamers have had their fill with the Diablo series and various MMORPGs, console owners are left scratching their heads, looking for a suitable solution.

Dungeon Siege III — the first two games were PC exclusives — crosses that divide and offers a promising experience that is ultimately hurt by its lack of ambition.

This installment is the first of the series to be published by Square Enix and the franchise’s first crack at home consoles. If you’re new to the Dungeon Siege series, there’s no need to worry. The story takes place in the same universe, but stands apart from the mythology established in earlier games.

Instead they are mentioned as bits of lore in books and scrolls scattered throughout the game world. Astute observers may be able to pick up these references, but not getting them doesn’t ruin the fun for newbies.

THE STORY SO FAR: You take control of one of four descendants of the 10th Legion traveling the land of Ehb, uniting the people to restore the monarchy overthrown by a religious zealot.

Each of the characters falls into the staple archetypes of fantasy RPGs. Lucas hits hard up close with his swords, while Katarina blasts them from afar with guns. Anjali and Reinhart fill out the roster as the mage-type characters. You pick one and the other three appear at various points in the game as AI-controlled allies.

Whomever you choose, the premise of the game is straightforward: Unite the remnants of the 10th Legion and then take down the Big Bad. That usually means travelling — or rather, moderately jogging — across various locales and hitting bad guys with your weapon of choice. Vanquished enemies drop gold and loot in the form of weapons and armor, which can be equipped to boost your characters’ stats or sold to purchase equipment at a merchant.

CUSTOMIZING CHARACTERS A LITTLE TOO SIMPLE: Characters accumulate experience for defeating enemies and completing quests and can upgrade their abilities and skills when they reach a new level. Each character’s active abilities and passive skills can be further customized, so the same two characters may end up with different builds.

The leveling system is intuitive, but fans of stat-crunching and skill-maxing might be turned off by the simplistic scheme.

The emphasis is clearly on combat and scooping up loot. There aren’t any health or magic potions to acquire. Defeated enemies simply drop orbs that replenish either stat and you can also build up your magic power (called Focus) to use your special abilities by attacking enemies.

Even if you fall in combat, your ally, AI or player-controlled, can revive you without penalty. It keeps things moving a brisk pace but at the cost of any semblance of strategy. You just run in, whack the enemies until they’re all dead and then pick up whatever they drop before moving to the next area.

WOW, LOOT: The prospect of picking up a sweet new sword or suit of armor that’s better than what your character is wearing keeps things fresh. It’s hard to say how much equipment actually affects your character’s combat capabilities; sometimes I felt as though the only thing I was doing was playing dress-up with the goodies I got.

Breaking up the hacking and slashing are bits of dialogue and cut scenes. The dialogue system is more or less cribbed from the Mass Effect series, although the characters and NPCs could have benefited from better voice-acting. Your responses affect how parts of the plot unfold and your rapport with your allies, though I didn’t notice any earth-shattering changes when choosing one way or another until the end credits roll.

STORY DISAPPOINTS: The cut scenes are presented as sequences of narrated storyboards that advance the story, which itself isn’t too compelling, populated with dull and uninteresting characters, and often takes a backseat to beating bad guys up. Developer Obsidian Entertainment has shown that it can craft a captivating and immersive story in previous titles such as Fallout: New Vegas and Alpha Protocol, so why they couldn’t have given the same treatment with the Dungeon Siege universe is curious.

The single-player campaign isn’t a lengthy one at all. If you’re just focused on advancing the story with little regard for side quests, an average playthrough can take up to 12 hours. But even that feels much longer than it is, mainly because you’re walking everywhere. In some cases, you’re forced to backtrack. A couple of fast-travel options would have been nice. Even if you somehow manage to get lost, a quick tap on the D-pad brings up a trail of lights to guide you to your next destination.

I was disappointed there’s no “new game plus” option to carry over a character to another playthrough, which defeats the purpose of seeking out the best weapons and armor. Once you’ve got an ideal setup of skills and equipment going, the game’s close to finished.

MULTIPLAYER OPTION: Dungeon Siege III supports local multiplayer for two, but the second player can’t import his or her character; they can only use characters the first player has created or a randomly leveled character if the first player doesn’t have that character on file.

It’s like how in Gauntlet there aren’t two wizards in a single game; one person has to be the warrior, one person the elf and so on. It’s also like that online as well, which is a great disappointment when you consider up to three friends can join you in the fun. Only the host gets to keep whatever loot is acquired during the game. The other players end up merely replacing the AI partner.

On paper, Dungeon Siege III’s pedigree should have made for an incredible game. Mix in the hack-and-slash fun and addictive loot-finding of the Diablo games with a bit of Mass Effect’s dialogue system and it should have been gaming gold. Or at least it should have been. It seems everything Dungeon Siege III attempts, there’s already a game out there that does it better. Unless you’re really dying for a game to slake your dungeon-crawling thirst until Diablo III comes out, I’d say thatDungeon Siege III isn’t anything more than a rental.

Gieson Cacho

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This game isn’t worth its 49.99$ price tag. On a PC – this clearly is a pure console port!! The visuals are extremely dated and most importantly – you have checkpoint saves – hello?
The inventory is BAD – and you’re FORCED to level up and assign attribute points at the very instance u level up!!
Finally – the levelling itself leaves a bad taste in your mouth – I couldnt figure out WHAT to choose in levelling as teh changes just didnt seems that evident on playing!! “Something” happens – but levelling-gameplay changes is hardly perceptible!!

Once I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now every time a comment is added I get 4 emails with the identical comment. Is there any manner you can remove me from that service? Thanks!